


Done by Blood

by MegumitheGreat



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Alternate Universe - Code Vein, Blood, Blood Drinking, Code Vein AU, Code Vein OC, EPILEO, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, One Shot, Revenants, Self-Indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-02-07 11:37:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21457429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegumitheGreat/pseuds/MegumitheGreat
Summary: Sorey, a human that leaves the safety of a shelter, finds himself being attacked by four desperate revenants before being rescued by Mikleo and his attendant Lysithea.
Relationships: Mikleo & Sorey (Tales of Zestiria)
Kudos: 5





	Done by Blood

**Author's Note:**

> I finished Code Vein very recently (and immediately started my Bad Route run) and felt like Revenant!Epileo and Human!Sorey would be an interesting dynamic even if a short one. And it took me until halfway through this fic that I realized that the Attendants of the Relics are named after Jupiter's moons. I thought Lysithea was a beautiful name for someone who works to protect someone else just as beautiful. Sorey and Mikleo's voices might be a bit different than other stories due to the...undead...feeling of Code Vein.

“Hold still, human,” the raspy, thirsty voices of the revenants ordered.

There were four of them all hovering around a brunet that had collapsed from fatigue after trying to outrun them. They were rogues that had broken away from the provisional government. Fed up with no blood beads to be found anywhere and desperate for something to put in their stomachs, they had trapped the human in a corner. They held him down with monstrous power, and he squirmed and begged them to let him go.

“Let me go!” he pleaded. “Please, I…I don’t want to die like this!”

“Should’ve thought about that before leaving the shelter, Fresh Meat,” one of them cackled. While three of the revenants held the human down, this one tore off his sleeve to expose the supple lightly tanned skin of his arm. “God, it’s been so long since I’ve had the taste of real blood.”

“Just make sure you don’t drink all what’s in him,” a second revenant warned. “Remember, humans will die if you drink too much.”

The others ripped away more of his clothes, and once their eyes fell on the feast before them, their mouths watered. The four of them grabbed his arms and legs and sank their fangs into them. At first, the human cried out for help as he felt the blood running in his veins drain out into the blackholes around him. He felt cold and delirious, the world spinning and the faces multiplying around him. He grew weaker and weaker until there was no way he could fight them off.

Then, suddenly, the four suckling mouths released him all at once followed by their horrendous screaming. Someone else took hold of him. They cradled his head as they tipped a canteen of water to his lips.

“Drink slowly,” his savior told him softly. “Try to relax while I dress the bites. Don’t move, understand?”

The human uttered only a hum of affirmation. His tunneling vision slowly grew darker even as this mysterious one helped him. He was so tired, his heart beating slow and quiet. He didn’t want to die, but sleep was the last luxury he had in the world.

“He passed out,” the young revenant sighed. After he finished bandaging the bites, he threw him over his shoulder. He was slightly shorter than him—no more than a couple of centimeters—but he was strong thanks to his status. “I have to get him somewhere safe.”

\---------------------------------

The human slowly roused. Night had fallen, and he found himself in something of a storage house in the middle of a Lost haven. A woman with short silver hair and golden eyes stared at him curiously.

“Shall I protect this one as well?” she asked before turning to the one that had saved him.

The human sat up. He was still somewhat dizzied from the blood loss, but he saw the man before him clearly staring out of a window. He had long pale aquamarine hair and radiant violet eyes. He wore thick clothing that had suffered slashes and cuts, and he wore a fearsome respiration mask.

“You’re awake,” he said, his voice sounding younger than expected. “How do you feel?”

“Still weak,” the human admitted. “I…I was attacked by those revenants, but that’s all I remember.”

The revenant slowly—no, gracefully—approached him. He checked his eyes, which were dark and sunken. He offered him a sandwich.

“Why does a revenant have a sandwich?” the human asked with a giggle. He took the morsel with some uncertainty; after all, he was wary of accepting food from a stranger, and much more from a revenant. “Don’t you drink…blood?”

“Well, those who give into their thirst do,” the revenant replied. “I’ve gotten a few blood beads to keep me going. I once met a lot of revenants who actively sought them and gave them to those on the verge of frenzy.”

The human took a bite of the sandwich. “I see…I didn’t think you could still find things like this around.”

“I have my connections.” The revenant stared him, again closely looking at his face. “That sandwich is actually from that crew, but we’ve since gone our separate ways. My name is Mikleo.”

“I’m Sorey,” the human replied.

“Sorey—interesting name.”

Mikleo beckoned the girl from earlier to meet his new acquaintance. Her name was Lysithea. She was something called an Attendant of the Relic, mysterious girls that accompanied Successors. To a human, it didn’t make sense, and Mikleo didn’t see the point in explaining all this to him. But Sorey wanted to know. He had been locked up in a shelter to stay safe from the Red Mist that had befallen the world, yet his thirst for knowledge was as terrible as the rogues’ thirst for his blood.

“It’d serve you no purpose. No, forget about it. Lysithea, don’t speak another word about our business.”

“As you wish,” Lysithea replied.

“But this all sounds so cool and you’ve barely told me anything! Mikleo, please! There’s got to be at least something you can tell me. Lysithea!”

“I cannot go against my Successor’s orders.”

“Ah-ha, so you’re a Successor, likely a very important person! Tell me what that means!”

Sorey took a few steps toward him, but Mikleo pushed him back. He swore it didn’t matter to him. Sorey, on the other hand, understood it as his new friend simply not wanting to divulge his history. The brunet pouted before he went over to the strange girl and asked her to tell him about her master.

“My Successor has an uncanny ability to control water due to his relic that is the Queen’s Tongue,” she explained. “Successors all carry a part of the Queen within their bodies, and they must take care not to lose themselves to frenzy. Should my Successor fall, it is my duty to stay by his side and alleviate his pain.”

Sorey’s skin prickled. He remembered only vague mentions of the Queen and how she had tied into the Great Collapse. The very utterance of Her title made him nauseous, and as one of the few thousands of humans that had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, he feared what would happen if he ran into anyone that was stupid enough to still follow her.

Of course, the Queen had long been destroyed, and these relics were the only things left of her. He couldn’t help but worry about his new friend now. The Queen had been the origin for all that had happened, right? Humans were kept in the dark about Operation Queenslayer while they hid in the safety of shelters. But if the Queen frenzied and now had pieces of herself within other revenants, wouldn’t that mean that they would eventually frenzy as well?

The brunet took Lysithea’s pale cold hands. Like her attendee, she was a revenant brought back to life at some point to protect Mikleo. The lace that was grafted into her skin spiraled up her legs, giving her a delicate look that made him wonder if she would shatter from even tripping and falling.

“Lysithea, can I protect him, too?” he asked her earnestly.

“W-What are you saying? We just met!” Mikleo countered.

“I cannot stop you from standing by his side. My only purpose is to do so myself.”

“So that means I can stay with him!” Sorey smiled.

“No, you can’t! You’re just a human! A human!” Mikleo fussed.

\---------------------------------

Months had passed. Mikleo’s hideout had been raided by thralls—revenants forced into slavery by other revenants—and was now devoid of all the blood beads he had stocked up to get him through the worst of the Red Mist. Sorey and Lysithea stayed with him, worrying what would happen now that he no longer had anything to keep him from frenzying. Lysithea showed no overt emotion, though. It unnerved Sorey, but it didn’t scare him as much as Mikleo’s deteriorating state.

His porcelain-white skin was tainted by sickly black veins trailing from his eyes down his face and cheeks, and handfuls of hair had come out in his hands from incessantly pulling at it. The beautiful locks that reminded Sorey of the sea shined on the ground. There were days that he whined like an animal in pain, the thirst for blood paralyzing him on the ground. Lysithea would venture out to find blood springs only to come back empty handed and injured herself.

Mikleo warned Sorey to stay away from him or else he would suck him dry to alleviate the dreadful hunger. And when he did, the young brunet would go to his attendant for advice. What could he do to help him? Finally, one day he received an answer.

“You wish to help him, knowing what that would entail?” she asked him.

“Of course! He saved me from a bunch of rogues, so I want to help him by offering my blood to him,” he replied. “I know the risk, but if I can help him, I don’t care. I don’t want him to suffer like this!”

Lysithea brought Sorey before Mikleo, who was writhing at this point. She asked him once more if he was absolutely sure he wanted her Successor to drink his blood. He nodded resolutely at her. This was the only way he could think that would help him.

“Then so be it,” she said. She gently touched Mikleo’s back. “Our friend would like to help you. Do you wish to accept him?”

“No!” Mikleo vehemently said. “I’m not drinking his blood! I don’t need it! I…can wait…a little longer…!” He gripped his arms and curled even tighter. “W-When they…get here…”

“Mikleo, just drink my blood,” Sorey pressured him. He knelt to him. “You’ve helped me so much. You saved me so long ago, and I’ve only gotten us into trouble because I’m a human. I don’t care if you don’t want to hurt me; I want you to be safe. I don’t care if it’ll hurt.”

Mikleo looked up at him with darkening eyes of frenzy. He still had a grip on his sanity, but how long would he last? He knew that time was ticking, and if he didn’t drink any blood—human or substitute from a blood bead—he would turn into the horrifying monsters called the Lost. If that were to happen, Lysithea would perish, and Sorey…

He didn’t want to think what would become of Sorey if he managed to escape his wrath. Over the months that they had lived together, he had fallen in love with him. And the feelings were mutual. He had kept him safe. Even when they had found a shelter deep in the emptied nest of a Poison Butterfly Lost, Sorey refused to leave him. They enjoyed each other’s company, and Sorey’s interest in all the ruins caused by the Great Collapse washed away the loneliness of this new apocalyptic world. But they had never kissed, much less had Mikleo allowed himself to drink from him.

So why was he offering now? He was sure that it was of pity, but then wouldn’t that have meant that Sorey didn’t love him? No, the human truly cared for the fading revenant. It was why he wasn’t afraid of him. It was why he was willing to sacrifice himself.

“I’m sorry, Sorey,” Mikleo apologized. He reached to him. “Forgive me if I indulge too much.”

He grabbed him by his arm, pulling him close before sinking his fangs into his neck. At first, Sorey’s body tensed; the stinging pinch of the bite hurting more than he had anticipated and the feeling of his blood being slowly drained from his body frightened him even though he held no fear of his protector, not like he had feared the rogues. Mikleo would have tried to stop himself if his inadvertent prey demanded so, but when he felt Sorey simply cling to his shirt, his undead heart stopped. He let go for just a moment. His thirst hadn’t been sated yet.

“Why are you doing this? Don’t you know you’ll only come back if you have the BOR Parasite in your heart?” he asked him.

Drawling from being lightheaded, the brunet smiled. “I know,” he quietly said. “But I don’t want you to suffer. Because when you suffer, I do, too.”

“And if I can’t stop myself? Won’t I be alone again?”

“Maybe…but my heart will always be with you. So, if you have to drink all of my blood, then it’s okay.”

Mikleo bit his lip. The maddening urge to drink until he was full drove him to latch back onto his neck. The more he did, the limper his body became, and each breath was shallower than before. Lysithea watched quietly. If this was what he had to do to stay alive, she wouldn’t stop him. But there was an agony in watching her Successor torture himself, and finally she intervened.

“If his death will bring my Successor heartache, a greater pain than any other, then I must stop you,” she said. She gripped Mikleo’s hair and pulled back. Forcing him to release the human, she yanked him from his hold. “Perhaps, one day, we can find someone to place a BOR Parasite in him and revive him as a revenant. But until then…”

“Until then, I mustn’t let him die,” Mikleo tearfully said. “I’m sorry, Sorey.” He reached out for him in Lysithea’s caring arms. He vowed that he would keep him alive until they could find a way to be together after death.

**Author's Note:**

> It's implied that Sorey eventually dies and maybe becomes a revenant. I did do a major time skip in this one just because I really wanted to write Mikleo drinking his blood. I wasn't trying to make the blood drinking sexy or anything, since Code Vein does such a wonderfully morose twist with vampires. It's a great game--go play it!


End file.
